To Be A Warrior

Chapter 67: What the World Needs Now

"I still can't believe anyone would do that with V-Type blood. You know what I mean, Five?" Jody asks, her face pinched, green eyes filled with disgust as we stand and wait. "The pills are bad enough, but V-Type pills? What's wrong with them?"

Paula sighs. "At least the children survived."

"Where's the horde now though?"

Peter's grip on my wrist tightens a bit before he answers. "Heading north, towards us. They destroyed Marlow Castle and the Alexandra Colony. It's the biggest V-Type horde there's ever been."

I shudder. So much destruction in just a few days. It's not even been a week since the Exmoore fell.

"Yeah, because nobody's ever been stupid enough to make pills with V-Type blood before," Sam grumbles through my headset. Grief is still present with us as we mourn what happened, but now there is anger along with it. So many people died. That's something to get angry about.

I'm happy that I got the day with Peter a few days ago to take my mind off of things, but I can't take my mind off of it forever. It's happened and now we have even more V-Types to worry about, and now we must move forward. And a part of that means getting angry.

"Did we find the guy?" Jody asks, and Paula raises a brow.

"The man in the red cap Five tackled?" She shakes her head. "Missing, presumed V-Type. We can't know for certain he was a Last Rider. Suicide attacks breed copycats."

"We have to get back into the fungus farm where we found the accelerant, Five," Sam says. "That stuff must have been how they made the pills."

I frown, bouncing my leg anxiously. "Uh, yeah. Plus there's a device in there that could help me regain my memory. I saw something in there, but I can't remember what, and not even Moonchild could tell me what I saw. Ugh, I hate it when there's blanks in my memory. It's a really helpless feeling."

"I know, sweetheart, but it's taking some time. And this conference is important. Sage wants me to run the briefing again."

The deadpan look on Peter's face makes my giggle. "It's one of his things. Repetition until your brain gets sick of it, but you'll always remember it."

"Ah, so like when you tell me your jokes," I smirk, and he sticks his tongue out at me which makes me giggle again. Sam clears his throat to get our attention.

"Alright then. Mission briefing. After what happened to Exmoore, we desperately need to unite the factions across the UK. Sage is the obvious contender now. He's a leader everyone can live with."

"He's more than that, Sam," Peter says. "Anyway, I think he only wants to be interim battle coordinator."

Paula hums. "Ah. Caesar refusing the crown."

"Look, someone has to run this. We have to work together, but the faction leaders are all terrified that they'll be stuck here if-"

"If someone doses the champagne," I finish.

"Or anything else," Sam adds. "Yeah. So that's why we're running this exercise. We need to prove the emergency procedures are airtight. When the whistle goes, you've got twenty-five minutes to get everyone off the rig. We're being observed by people from Wales, Cornwall, and-oh. From the Hebrides. Sage's team is throwing in surprises, apparently. So that's fun."

"It's for the Psychoanalysts Enclave," Peter says with an eyeroll. "They're being really resistant. Sage things they don't want to join the coalition at all, and they're using safety fears as an excuse. Mind games, basically. Which, to be fair, is their job. So we have to get this right. If people don't come, chaos will just keep rising and rising and rising..."